What's your unofficial role in work?

[MamaAndTheSofa]

Chatting to a couple of friends the other day, we were discussing how we all have unofficial roles in work - roles that are never in any job description, but which someone has to do.

Mine is "Attender of funerals". When we feel we ought to send someone from the office to a funeral (eg a colleagues mum has died or something), it always ends up being me.

Another friend is the unofficial knot un-tier; if anyone has a knot they can't undo (which seems to happen ridiculously often in his work, as far as I can tell), they come to him and he undoes it.

Another friend is the one who always has hand cream.

What are yours?

Mender of split seams and sewer on of buttons
Human encyclopaedia
Remover of rogue apostrophes
Person who deals with accidents involving blood
Person who can work the washing machine, dryer and dishwasher (I give lessons too!)

Read my follow up post at 09:14.

The Trusted Listener. I know more about my colleagues than they do themselves. People just seem to………reveal themselves to me and I see all the truthful bits

For giving a colleague a couple of paracetamol? Absolutely zero grounds for any disciplinary action there!

I Get asked because everyone knows I always have paracetamol and ibuprofen in my bag. They also know I have stronger prescription only meds but I don’t share those!

They know you will do it. Then it becomes your unofficial job. Google and/or You Tube is my stock answer to repeat offenders

I am the asker of awkward questions that managers don't want to answer. I ask politely though but directly.

I'm definitely the emotional support person. I don't mind 🤣

If a first aider gives a colleague medication, it can be legally classed as "prescribing" it. First aiders have it drummed into them not to offer medication.

I doubt that a non-first aider giving two paracetamol to a colleague who has asked for some would confer any legal liability, because the requesting colleague has asked for the medicine and the giving colleague isn't acting as any kind of medic, however IANAL and I can understand why employers are twitchy about this.

I seem to have become an agony aunt, which is weird as I’m sure none of my colleagues aspire to my lifestyle. Maybe they just think I won’t judge them?

Department manager though I'm not paid to manage nor is it in my job title.

If you had said provider of paracetamol then I most likely wouldn’t have commented but you did say painkillers. Its reasonable to assume that don’t know what you have in your bag. Someone at my work is going through a disciplinary but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t paracetamol. That said since the events at work I wouldn’t even give that to someone as ultimately I don’t know what other medication they’re taking or if they have an allergy. Previously, like you I would give paracetamol or ibuprofen if I had it.

Spider remover.

I'm the same, although the last 2 I share with a few colleagues. Instead I am the sole organiser of the Tupperwares.

Tea maker...
Bringer in of milk

Unofficial travel agent.

Grammar police... and anti management bollocks-speak person. I'm due to retire soon so I'm not afraid to pull people, even senior people, up if they are using corporate language in stuff which is meant to be understood by our entire workforce. Our workforce includes a LOT of people whose first language is not English and a plenty of English speaking people who haven't necessarily managed to achieve a pass in GCSE English. Using Corporate/Management bollocks-speak in communications which they are expected to read is completely ridiculous.

Rant over.

Knowing where stuff is. That's my superpower at work.

'Nice handwriting' so naturally when something needs to be written on the board, in cards, meetings in minutes... it's me 😆

My office is regrettably close to that of our marketing manager. He and the two directors were having a slightly too-loud meeting the other day, and among all the corporate bollock-speak I heard the dreaded words: 'low-hanging fruit'.

I had to go for a walk round our warehouse for 5 minutes to calm down enough for the steam to stop coming out of my ears. The idiots are so keen on all their shiny new marketing material and all the rest of it, that they are neglecting to notice not the low-hanging fruit, but all the fruit that has already fallen off the bloody trees and is being left there to rot. I'm head of finance and I've seen all the existing customers gradually reducing what they spend with us, and I know all the regular customers who have stopped ordering and now buy elsewhere. It is all very well chasing after new customers, but they've forgotten about all the ones we already have. Do they listen to me? No. Aaarghh.

Rant over 😂

Knitter and crocheter, plus DofE supervisor of craft skills. I knit and crochet and run a lunch time craft club at the school where I work. I'm now getting the odd commission to make things for colleagues and getting requests from lots of kids to supervise their craft progress for the skills section of their DofE. None of this is my actual job!

I LOVE this

I am the official recommender of good TV series to watch/stream.

Also the one who works out the VAT element of a full price thing bought from a shop or etc.

At the risk of sounding humourless, I do find a lot of these examples depressing. The ones that are basically enabling other people's learned helplessness. It's very true that men do not get stuck into these "sticking plaster" roles. I've recently resolved to stop doing this. It's never done anything but hold me back. The worst example was probably when I joined a company as "X Specialist". As soon as I got there, I was put onto the task of "Y Donkey Work". I had very little experience of Y, but got stuck in and became reasonably proficient. There was actually a whole team of "Y Specialists", who simply couldn't or wouldn't learn the advanced skills. Their manager once apologetically said to me "It's just that you know how to do it". I nearly exploded. Poor management, low-quality colleagues - it wasn't long before I left for a job that actually used my skills instead of using me to mop up other people's deficiencies.

Hand cream & charger provider.

IT support (I recently set up two factor authentication for the app version of our clinical record system on more than half my colleagues phones at their request. I’m now dealing with a trust wide change of email address!!). We don’t have much IT support and several of my colleagues are very wary of technology despite being my age (late 40s). I’m always thankful to my Dad for making sure we had a computer early & knew how to use it. I’m never going to work in tech but if I can’t get the printer or scanner to work then you need someone from IT.

Organiser of care/appreciation/sympathy fund and the associated gifts. A colleague does Christmas buying but I do the money side.

Some of my male colleagues have roles too - organiser of sporty outings/pub trips etc as do female colleagues. One is definitely the sounding board and one of the others supplied me with chocolate at 8am when I’d been awake for almost 24hrs and didn’t know how I was going to get home as I was so tired.

Of the men with "roles", it seems to be fun extra curricular stuff, like social events, or personal favours like repairs. There don't seem to be many men whose "role" is to prop up their incompetent colleagues.